Currently users of intelligent devices—a very broad class of devices including personal computers (“PC”s), handheld computers, smart phones, and other devices—are able to access data saved in many formats. Text, audio clips, and video clips are some of the information formats that can be accessed. Often this information is generally referred to as “content.”
Content is generally accessed by running a computer program or application which knows how to display and interact with the content file. A spreadsheet file, for example, may be accessed by starting an associated spread sheet application using the content file as the information to be displayed. A word processing file, for example, may be accessed by starting an associated word processing application using the content file as the information to be displayed. Similarly, an audio file may be played by a media player application using a content file, such as an mp3 file. Additionally, links to content on a network can be embedded in documents such as HTML web pages and in email. When the user selects the embedded link, the appropriate application is invoked automatically, information about where to retrieve the content is passed to the application, and the responsibility for fetching and processing the referenced content is delegated to this application.
Some media formats, however, are poorly supported by mobile devices. It is often difficult to read a long email text on a mobile device because of the small size of the mobile's display. Additionally, the display of the mobile may not support the displaying of video or audio files.
Today we live in a richly networked environment. While our mobile device may have limited capability of handling content, a capable media device may be near to the mobile user. Such a media device might play the content with much greater fidelity than possible on the mobile device.
What is needed, therefore, is a system and method to initiate cooperative communication between a mobile device and a capable media device to enable the media device to play back content initiated by the mobile device.